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Competition Commission raids auto body firms

The Competition Commission today raided the offices of three auto body firms as part of its investigation into collusive conduct in the market for auto body repairs. This is according to Leana Engelbrecht, Senior Associate in the Competition practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr.

She explains that the Commission may conduct dawn raids on firms where it has reasonable grounds to believe that a prohibited practice is taking place or that information or documentation relevant to an ongoing investigation is at the premises being raided and subject to obtaining (in most instances) a warrant to conduct the search and seizure operations.

“The Commission confirmed that these dawn raids are being conducted subject to the requisite warrants approving the search and seizure operations being obtained,” she notes.

Engelbrecht adds, “This dawn raid marks the second dawn raid publicly conducted by the Commission this year, the first being dawn raids on Unilever and Sime Darby Hudson & Knight in respect of the Commission's investigation into the market for the manufacture and supply of edible oils and margarine, which took place in April 2014 and adds to the small yet growing list of the handful of dawn raids conducted by the Commission since its inception.”